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Concordia’s undergraduate students have voted in favour of a boycott of Israel, although it remains unclear how such action might actually affect daily life on campus.

The ballots for question No. 8, the most controversial referendum question asked to students in a series of votes held during the past week, were finally counted on Friday evening. They had initially been sealed as a result of the explosive nature of the issue and dozens of complaints to the Concordia Student Union (CSU).

Concordia undergrad students vote in favour of Israel boycottBack to video

The question read: “Do you approve of the CSU endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel?”

The “yes” side garnered 1,276 votes, while 1,067 ballots were marked “no.” A total of 237 voters abstained from the question. The overall turnout, at 2,580, was extremely low. There are 35,000 registered undergraduates at Concordia who were eligible to vote.

“We knew from the get-go that any result would be very, very tight,” said Lauren Luz, a member of the “no” committee. “This is the outcome, and this is what the students chose.”

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Luz added that the “no” side ran on a campaign that had very little to do with Israel itself.

“Our whole campaign was based on being here to unite the students and to stay away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because it is such a complex foreign issue,” she explained. “We really did get our message across.”

The BDS movement stems from a declaration issued in July 2005, signed by about 100 Palestinian organizations, calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel that mirror those levied against South Africa during the 1980s. A special committee (not affiliated with the university administration) is expected to be formed — open to the public and with representatives from both sides — to discuss the next steps, said Luz.

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In a statement released Friday evening, Concordia’s president, Alan Shepard, made clear that “the result of the vote is independent of the university” and took issue with the idea of a boycott.

“In my view, a boycott barring us from contact with other universities and scholars would be contrary to the value of academic freedom that is a pillar of Concordia and of universities all over the world,” Shepard wrote. “That freedom — to think the thoughts we want to think, to test ideas however controversial — is the bedrock of university life. Boycotts by definition foreclose all opportunities for such a free exchange of ideas and perspectives.”

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Javier I. Hoyos, chairperson of the BDS “yes” committee, did not respond to a request for comment on Friday night.

Luz was present for the vote count on Friday, and said she is confident that none of the ballots was tampered with after they were cast. But there are still concerns over reports of people being given multiple ballots, she said, and issues with the monitoring of polling stations. The “yes” side has also alleged numerous campaign violations by their opponents. In a release issued Monday, Hoyos accused the “no” side of “using misinformation, scare tactics, and (causing) confusion around the issue.”

The complaints led the CSU to issue a $150 fine against the “no” committee last week for unspecified infractions. The committee has denied any wrongdoing, and may still contest Friday’s results.

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